Voices against violence

Project Organization

The training event gave the trainers a deeper understanding of violence against girls and young women and enabled them to speak about the topic correctly, while challenging harmful myths and beliefs that continue to perpetuate the cycle.

Impact for girls & women

5 national trainers received scholarships to attend the training event

Estimated girls & women affected

5

Broader impact

The 5 national trainers will each train 30 Leaders who will then run the Voices against Violence curriculum with 30 girls and boys, young women and young men.

Estimated community members affected

4,500

Five women successfully trained to tackle violence against girls and young women!

The unique ACTIVATE training event to end violence against girls and young women took place in India from 12th – 17th December 2014, with a total of 46 participants from Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Malaysia, Korea, India, Japan and Fiji. Five of the trainers – from Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Malaysia – were only able to attend the event through your kind support. Their names are Chamathya, Panchali, Armie, Laila and Azizah. Three of these five trainers were young women under the age of 30, so this was an incredible empowerment opportunity for them. The training event gave the trainers a deeper understanding of violence against girls and young women and enabled them to speak about the topic correctly, while challenging harmful myths and beliefs that continue to perpetuate the cycle. While learning about violence and how to use the non-formal educational curriculum, participants gained advocacy skills and were taken through steps on how to influence decision makers and community members to respond to and prevent violence against girls and young women. They also learnt how to monitor and evaluate the implementation of the curriculum in their own communities.

Get personal

"It was indeed a privilege to have been given an opportunity to participate at the ACTIVATE event held in Sangam, India. This event was an ideal platform for me to gain a deeper understanding of the issues related to gender based violence and enhance my skills and techniques in rolling out the Voices Against Violence curriculum in my country." Panchali, Sri Lankan Girl Guides

Risks and challenges

The training event took place in India as we have a World Centre there, however we soon found that Indian visas can be particularly tricky for many people to obtain and we ran the risk of some of the participants not being able to attend. We also had some difficulties with the fact that it was mostly volunteers who were attending the event and therefore had to work around their schedules and availability. This is why one of the Sri Lankan participants had to drop out quite last minute, as she was unable to get the time off work.

What we’ve learned

A big learning curve we experienced was around the time frame we had for organising the event. We knew this would be a challenge but had not anticipated how much it would worry the participants if their flights were booked slightly later than expected and they only had a couple of weeks to carry out their pre-training tasks. We learnt a lot about managing expectations and preparing the participants sufficiently beforehand on the journey they would take emotionally and intellectually through the event and on into the post-event tasks. Once they were at the event itself we were able to iron out these fears, but it did emphasise the need for a clearer dialogue in the run up to the event.

Next steps

All participants left the training with an action plan on how they would move forward. The two young women from Sri Lanka – Chamathya and Panchali – felt they could work together to strengthen their efforts and expand their pool of knowledge, and gradually move the programme across all regions in Sri Lanka. They identified sexual violence and sexual harassment as the main two forms of violence against girls and young women that they would focus their training sessions on.

Budget

* The total flight cost was £748.00, however £705.24 was covered by WAGGGS. This was because the original selection was one participant from Malaysia, three from Sri Lanka and one from the Philippines but unfortunately, due to personal reasons, one of the Sri Lankan participants was unable to attend. Therefore, the funds was used to part-fund the participation of an additional Filipino trainer instead.

Line Items

Projected budget

Amount spent so far

Flights

Event Fees

Transportation

Total

￡2,000

￡1,710

￡300

￡4,010

￡1,957.32

￡1,710

￡300

￡3967.32

$20,146

Further reading

Check out the Voices against Violence curriculum for yourself here: For updates on the Stop the Violence Campaign: http://www.stoptheviolencecampaign.com/en/home For more about the work of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girls Scouts, visit our website at http://www.wagggs.org/en/home

90 Day Report

Unique training to end violence against girls

October 17, 2014

Progress

Thanks to your support, we have undertaken work to identify which individual women would most benefit from the project. The five full grants have been assigned to three women - one from Sri Lanka, one from Malaysia, and one from the Philippines. These women will take part in a unique five-day training on understanding violence against girls and its root causes, how to create a safe space to explore violence and the myths surrounding the issue, and how to use our non-formal education curriculum ‘Voices against Violence’ to empower young people to take action. All of these women have made the commitment to transfer their new skills and knowledge to their own communities, by each training 30 leaders within their organisations on the curriculum.

The impact of this training will empower leaders to correctly and safely carry out the curriculum with young people, enabling them to challenge gender stereotypes, recognize violence, and for girls to gain the skills and confidence to stand up and claim their rights.

Risks and challenges

The biggest risk with this project is assuring that the five women get the necessary visas to attend, as the training event is in India, and it can often be difficult to gain access into the country. However, as a global organisation we have a great deal of experience with supporting visa applications. In addition, we have regional teams who can work closely with the Girl Guiding and Girl Scouting organisations within each of the countries to ensure all necessary steps are taken to secure the correct visas.

Get personal

Many of our member organisations are already committed to working on the issue of violence against girls, but they simply don’t have the resources yet to expand their work and reach more Girl Guides and Girl Scouts. Visakha, a member of the Sri Lankan Girl Guides, was very excited for their organisation to receive three full grants to attend the training. She expressed that, “this is the opportunity we have been waiting for – to scale up systematically.”

Next steps

Next steps include the logistics of booking flights and planning the training event. We will be working closely with experts on gender-based violence to ensure the training is of the highest quality and to communicate regularly with the selected women. Momentum and excitement will be building, as we work closely with our member organisations to ensure that women are fully supported when they return home and can train others and empower young people in their communities.

Budget

No money has yet been spent; however this process will begin in the upcoming weeks.

Stop the violence by educating girls and young women about their rights to live free from violence and to have the skills and confidence to claim them.

Why we care: It is estimated that up to six out of 10 girls and women will experience violence and/or sexual abuse in their lifetimes. This must stop.

How we’re solving it: By training 30 participants on facilitating the “Voices Against Violence” non-formal education program so they can help support girls, young women, boys and young men to identify violence, understand their rights, and end violence against girls.

Girls in every country across the world are subjected to violence—in its many forms. 150 million girls under 18 have experienced forced sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual violence involving physical contact. Two million girls—ages five to 15 years old—are introduced into the commercial sex market each year. And, 60 million girls are sexually assaulted at or on their way to school each year.

WAGGGS is committed to ending violence against girls and young women and has been working to break the culture of silence on violence. WAGGGS—in collaboration with UN Women—has develop the “Voices against Violence,” non-formal education program to help girls and young women to understand and assert their rights and become powerful forces for transformation. At the heart of the program, girls and young women challenge gender stereotypes, reach out to boys and young men and address the root causes of violence.

The training program is a critical part of the “Stop the Violence” advocacy campaign that is mobilizing 10 million girls and young women and 1.5 million volunteers around the world to end violence against girls. It is delivered through a network of peer educators and youth leaders who have been trained on how to use the program and create safe spaces where girls, boys, young women, and young men can learn to stop the violence.

This project will help WAGGGS raise funds to host a train-the-trainer event in Pune, India, from December 7 to December 14. Specifically, funds raised through this project will help WAGGGS offer scholarships to five participants so they may review the curriculum, build capacity on gender-based violence, develop implementation plans, learn about safety and ethical requirements with offering the training, and be able to return to their communities and train more trainers. After the course they will train other people in their own countries and ensure the impact of the training is multiplied at country level.

Each scholarship covers travel, lodging, food, and community activity costs.